


Wanderlust.

by siano_t



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Children, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Forced Bonding, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Physical Abuse, Pre-War, Read The Author Notes, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22416403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siano_t/pseuds/siano_t
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Edward Richtofen involuntarily moves from Berlin to Munich with his adoptive family. Delving into earth’s comely terrain, Edward uncovers a circuited fence that divides the area from a young, quaint American with an even quainter name, later growing to befriend him although Edward knew very little to none as of why an assemblage of American soldiers were gathered in Munich with no announcement.
Relationships: "Tank" Dempsey/Edward Richtofen
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Highly based on the very tragic and beautiful film, The Boy in Striped Pajamas. If you have not seen it, watch it, if you have, watch it again. Today was my first time of ever watching it, and as it’s about to be my second, it’ll never be my last. The ending shattered my heart, but my heart still goes out for those involved in the Holocaust. 
> 
> That being said, this story is similar but very different from the film. The ending and plot is nothing alike, and this story has nothing to do with the holocaust but on something else that will be revealed later on.

The diverting discoloured lumber shaped itself into a dwelling that belonged to no one other than them, encircled by auroral green briars and opaline flowers, paired with thickets that was cradling the lining, which were very uncared for, and now grew tall to nestle the windows on the upper floors. The sky is coruscating with pond-coloured tinges, bringing forth a measure of midnight shadows to cascade over the bundled roofing. The sun was beginning to set, huddled behind the low wisps of slate clouds. A young boy angled his head over his shoulder after hearing a sudden barrage of voices. The bright wreck of a vehicle they'd arrived had burst, a spiral of silvery steam extorted from the engine's tubes, and as if that weren't bad enough, the beige and sea-green metal was abruptly kicked. “Scheiße!”

The boy turned away a blind eye, wandering forward with his chestnut baggage that had been jammed with folded-up board flats, chess pieces and dice, and lastly a diminutive pouch of stale treats. Another of the ruins. He wouldn't stay long enough to see the atrocious residuum of the man's temper, and maybe if he were gone long enough, his demeanour wouldn't morph with their later session. He made for the bush wither clusters of purple campanulas, sea foam-coloured eyes distended from the ornament of the peaking beauty, and leisurely, he outstretched his tan fingertips to retrieve one of the lovely indigo bells.

“Eddie! Where are you?” A shrill of a shout badgered out, and it isn't long before the vehement pattering of slip-ons come stomping into the earth's soil. “What are you doing, Eddie?”

Young little Samantha Maxis recited, jouncing on her toes. Her sinistral fingers pottered the hem of her ivory-white dress which matched with her white ankle socks, and around her shoulders strung a bright cornflower cape that was secure by string. Edward is briefly suffused by discontent as brute fingers come to snag the crown of the plant. Her headlong approach had disturbed the short buzz of grass, causing speckles of dirt to spray over his shorts. He wipes madly at them, is even astounded at the sight of matted soil daubed at her knees and at the nips of her dress. He loathed any type of clutter, and above all, messes. It never helped that Maxis would strictly instruct him on medical-related sciences, would even attempt to get the boy to touch an animal for further scrutiny, but Edward simply could not. Never animals! He loved them, and per se, not even Maxis could stop him from stocking his baggage with animal treats, which were for the cat that always lingered near, the one that pursued their transfer from Berlin to Munich. As much as the young German wanted to perch the poor thing into the backseat, Maxis strictly forbid it. Of course, Edward was never to lay-off, went striding into the sunset in searches and had floundered in joy when the stippled thing came purring against his thigh.

“You know father said that cats are not allowed,” the girl warned, crumpling the beauty-bells in her fist and soiling them beneath her shoes, her eyes steady on the animal in his lap.

“He is not my father,” Edward muttered, nuzzling his face against the gelid nose of the feline who licked his face generously. “He doesn't tell me what to do.”

“Yeah, but you're an orphan.” Edward looked up at her in malice, lips rigid. “If father finds that clod, he'll kick it out. And you. You'll be nowhere.”

“Maybe I like being nowhere,” Edward grimaced, tucking his baggage beneath his forearm, standing inches over the girl who stood furiously quick. He wrapped his amiable arms around the feline to pursuit another area for comfort, one of prolonged stillness and couldn't be found by the sadists labeled his ‘ _family_.’

The footpath and his halcyon mind led him to the ventral part of the house, which the two ligneous doors had welcomed him in. He chased the elongated row of crimson carpet that ran him through the scope to sought out white walls and a still door. The raven-haired boy stares at it hesitantly, before gently kneeling to lay the cat on all fours and hold the bag generously to his chest. He was met with the intrusiveness that was always known to get him into trouble, never quite rejected it and he now found himself pulling out his palms to nudge the door open, which groaned in protest. The room is aired with dust, utterly covered in the dim grey lighting that came only from the bleary window which sat high and untouched. He probed the area behind him, sealing shut the door after his heels before he primed for the small step stool beneath the disintegrated desk, branching it against the wall below the window. Edward ground his palms together, dust particles spraying like water at which he sneered, before he made forth the stool. He discarded the bag onto the inferior step, moving around it to raise himself upwards to jab at the aged lift. Though gaunt, the sill allowed him leverage to haul himself in and through. The cowardly instincts hadn't hit hit him— same as the anticipated drop which had his heels scrape the batch of chopped lumber, aiding his plunge at the rear, which elicited a grunt from his lips.

Carefully, he pulls his weight to gingerly embrace the jump, roughly a foot high, and leap for the ground's earnest work of twigs, greens and poisons. The display of venerable oak and their branches that hung low with verdant leaves, which huddled almost correspondingly with the ground, left him momentarily short-winded. It was like a green wheat field, full of sizeable logs and perceptible greenery. The wind played as a serenade, which activated his impulse to move and followed the distinctive trail of disorderly dirt, parted by short plant foliage. Earth's terrain is exquisite, he sees as he cast out his arms, spreading his fingers to whisk through the rain-scented air as he ran, jovial though the sun's position traded with the thick clouds that threaten rain, and the sky is now a dull midnight. Aghast only at things deemed physical, Edward was not afraid of the dark. It was soothing. Peaceful. Occasionally, there came a croak of a frog, the squeak of a cricket, or the twigs cracking beneath the soles of his shoes. The hoarseness of the plants that skid over his exposed skin went aloof, came to a halt as fourteen-year old Edward Richtofen gradually idled, a low line of brown lake cracking the ground apart like an earthquake. No organisms were sought to be skimming through, and he doesn't take the time to give a subsequent thought to seek because everything comes to a stop at the sight of thin, outstretched wire, barbed and sparkly. And exotic.

Edward took a ginger leap for the bundle of grey rocks in the middle of the running lake. He didn't stay long, for his limbs quivered, but all made up for it when he projected onwards. Though the ragged feeling of plants against his skin, the prickle of foreign crawlers biting into his flesh fundamentally gave him the shakes, all was forgotten. Withal his age, the tender age of fourteen, he was tall and spindly, but the shrubs and bushes still towered over him. The boy cleaved them apart, but worked around the variety of batches of blossoms, hyacinths and orchids, which hugged the railing of the fences omit a meagre area of laying room, to which he welcomed his view of greenish onlookers to find a boy seated, disinterested, running his fingers on the hooks and twists of the border.

Edward tugged himself down swiftly, suppressing his body to peek over the fair flowers to gander further. The boy hardly looked any younger than Edward, one knee perched to his chest with the other array. He was estranged, in the German's eyes, didn't have the emblematic look known to be praised, but rather, very tan skin, speckled prominent dots which fringed mainly around his nose, and then a very palpable splotch of dirt on his right cheek. His optics were stone-blue coloured, which almost projected the sight if it weren't for his hair, which was not under-shaved like normal German kids, but a dark hazelnut, very lustrous and side-parted. His choice of clothing was implausible— a white tee hemmed into loose black trousers. And he was also barefoot.

The German elevated his weight, rounding the hyacinths with his fingers brushing excess particles from his clothing. He paused feet before the fence, which had the other promptly turning upwards. “Hallo?”

The tan boy sunk down his limb, moved his head to see the ranges he could from his spot, before he wound himself upwards. He dabbed his pink lips with his tongue, but at the greeting, he elected silence.

Edward peered around peculiarly. The fencing is simple and metal, looped around and barbed exclusively at the top, forbidding climbers. In the distance, a great statistic of figures, all wearing similar strange uniforms, clamoured shouts and questionably disconcerted bellows. The unparalleled ones that were distanced along the fences held abundant-looking weaponry, and in the free orangish soil, pavilions were set up like a forest. “Are you an itinerant?” He pondered, moving forward to press his hand to the fence, curling his fingers around them conspicuously.

The boy arched his head. “W'does that mean?”

His tongue did not belong to Germany. His voice was genuine, had an overall scratchiness and no outright accent to it that Edward couldn't quite pinpoint. Tentatively, he kneeled down. “You must be American. Are you homeless?”

The boy met the German's gaze, promptly silent before a little consecutive line creased in his cheek as he smiled. “Nah, of course not. Back at home, in Carolina, my house is big and nice, nothing like these awful tents. And it rains here, a lot.”

“I can tell,” beamed Edward, noticing the still-fresh puddles of water, and the mud that encircled it on the opposite side of the fence. “We're in Munich, Germany.” The American repeated the other's sentence mutely, visibly perplexed before Edward showered pity, replying swiftly as he adjusted his vest, “Did you not know?”

“Nah, no one told me.” The male's intellect didn't sense that the chuckle the German had made was at his absurdity. “This your hometown?”

“Berlin is, ja. That is where we moved from, and live now. I had been exploring just until I discovered your little, uh, camp?” He beamed in question.

The tanned-skin foreigner snorted, frisking his dotted arm through the tamed swerve of his golden locks. “Could hardly call it that. We're here on objective, for war.”

He sounded severely pleasured with the rolling of the tongue that that sentence had brought, to which Edward tilted his head, chest coiling in indisputable recreation. “What for?”

“Dunno.”

“Sounds like you're not very cognisant,” the German chuckled once more.

The American's face scrunched up. "The hell does that mean?" At the mute reply, his lips plait forward as his concrete brows tense. “You must be really smart, huh.”

The dismiss of a sigh marooned Edward to adapt more comfortably into the soil, legs strung up before him, inches from the silvery loops and tactile for the American, who leant his weight on a forearm, a slender grin dimpling his sunlit skin. Foisting the coolness of the metal from his palm, Edward delectably expressed his euphoria. The foreigner mirrored his tact, countenance unreasonably dazed, nonetheless, he remained smiling. The sky is a dulcet of bounteous blues, and there the rumbles finally crackled.

“It'll rain soon,” Edward finally spoke, peering up at the buoyant clouds.

The other parted his lips before an emphatic shout suspended him. They look to see the men who wore the weird uniforms facing the boy from hundreds of feet away, hands roosted on their hips as they failed to detect the German grasping the fence. “ _Thomas_!” And they'd call again.

 _Thomas_ , if that were his name, hastily stood, eyes on the German as he kept an adept, yet unwanted grin. “Yeah, and I'm outta here before that happens.” He doesn't put the effort into wiping the dirt off, instead he dove headstrong into a sprint, and though not as elevated, he was just as nimble than the young German. Edward respired silently, perceiving the young Thomas near the men that give him a pat before they turn for the tents, not at all conferring a second glance to the fences, when the German felt that they should've.


	2. Chapter 2

_It was there through the zephyr of the mist that he had been saved, limbs quivering in the cold of night, nails burrowed into his forearms as a hefty cape is thrown over his shoulders and he isn't instantly drowning in warmth. The man in the overcoat glowered over him, settling his sizeable palm on Edward's dainty shoulder reluctantly, as if the boy were porcelain. Aside from the stranger, his daughter indirectly stared at him, no longer galloping in her knee-length, striped sleeve-gown but peeking from beneath her father's knee, her distinctive auburn hair disorderly falling into her face. “Wer ist er? Vater?”_

_The widower retained the girl into his leg with the hand he had on Edward, now shifting to bend at his knees beam warmly, though it didn't meet his frail eyes. “Dein Bruder.”_

_Her velvety face spans into a lengthy smile, one that lacked the front teeth, and it was there she decided to twirl from her father's grasp, flinging her arms around Edward's startled waist. “Eddie!”_

_And though the generous hospitality of the two was enough to make his emerald lookers water, the raven-haired orphan could only bore at her, solemnly._

________

The gait home was unusually brief, shorter than it had been wondering through before. Upon climbing the lumber and mount back into the dusty room of the shed, shutting the window behind him, he corralled his bag and booted away the step-stool away, taking indecisive strides for the back doors of the house. He's met with golden lights that laminated the house, hanging in chandeliers to which he eyed briefly before he's jittering in a jerk at the blurt of his name all too quickly.

“Edward!” The boy turned to conform the doctor towering over him, already clad in his long white medical robe. “Have you no idea what time it is?”

The raven boy hefted the right side of his lips, an elementary retort that gave on more than it should've. The elder's eyes fluently cascaded over a thin wooden slate with stacks of papers swathed over, to which he dispersed with a simple jolt of his thumb on the metal tip. Ed, as pertinent as always, couldn't be dislodged by the man's coaxing of a steadfast that could trick even the largest unit of men around his finger. Needless to say, he wouldn't make a remark about the boy smelling of earth and bovine, to which young Edward would yield with humble stillness so he could return to his room to bathe, unbothered. “Verzeihung,” he'd mutter sedately, curving his way around the doctor who gave less of a mind to, his nose already crammed into the papers in his hands.

The boy shut himself in his austere room, perching his bag of frolic on the desk located in front of a vast window that is utterly caked in dust, and from the impact of his stuff with the wood, the dust had distended like mist which left him staggering backwards and choking over coughs. As his hands wave wildly to attempt at billowing away the obscene matter, his door scraped open, abrupt enough to almost be thrown off its hinges. “Eddie!”

“Gott,” the raven-male could barely muster out before he's enveloped into a bone-crushingly right hug. He cringed evidently, before lightly pushing the girl away at the sight of her face sodden with dirt. “What happened to your face?”

“I was outside,” she beamed proudly, dungy bangs always thrown over her eyes and lips. “I've picked you the best flowers.”

“Thank you, really,” Edward mustered out the best smile he could, one that struggled to not be taken over by pity.

Her teeth meshed together to form a grin, the once empty frontline of gums now full with her brand new adult teeth, though still small and frail-looking. She cinched the male into another hug, one Edward repaid with his palm warily warming her backside. Samantha had then bounced back on her heels, and much to Edward's dread, had excitedly begun to saunter around his room and set her sullied fingers on everything that met her eye. Edward made due to pay no mind, choosing to allow his eyes to wander through the grilles of the window at the landscape a mile away. The window provided a plentiful panorama of a valley, stippled with layers of adverse trees, abnormal topiary, and that same lake from before, though running behind the thick trees, just barely visible. Ahead lay a great mansion, encircled by exquisite fencing that protected odd large shrubs that were shaped into things, or animals, it seemed. On the porch running about, a marvellous orange-spotted feline stretched its limbs, enjoying the cool breeze.

A cat! Edward fought to keep his breath. Looking further, he could see with his ideal vision the extensive burrow of trees, all just looking like a lump of green, no doubt the one he had wandered through earlier in the day. Was that the home of the stray he had spoken to? Edward's brows heave inwards, before a somewhat hardy tug at his shorts has him peering down. Samantha has her fingers lurched around a vase, the ceramic one Edward had grown to know and love, the very one his parents had owned before their deaths. He couldn't remember any actual interaction, and those who he had enquired with his bleary eyes had all told the same lie;they'd die seconds after his birth.

“Samantha, put that down!” Edward's sudden demand had startled the girl, the vase slipping from her fingers, and just barely had the German boy had seized it. Settling it down with his heart still teetering in his chest, the boy turned towards his foster sibling, exhaling composedly, “Be careful next time. And don't touch my things,” he watched her almost instantly turn around her frame, stretching his coral lips into a toothy smile. “It's late, you should rest.”

“Good night, Eddie!” Samantha beamed, expectantly outstretching the rosiness of her right cheek, just barely being able to hover on her folded tip-toes. Edward had sighed, promptly lowering to station a kiss on the girl's cheek, who snickered out her happiness and practically cantered out of his room with a dance.

The lad had suspended his eyes over the view of the window, and upon seeing that the patchy feline had departed, he, too, went for the door. Refreshing his outlook with a mere breath, he decided to go and prepare himself coffee, seeing as he didn’t have any intentions on even glowering near the bed, because of his broad penchant for poetry and the latter, more or so art, but not the kind Maxis had liked; portraits of consummately constructed women and religion-based teachings of oil, to which he decorated the halls of the house, much to Edward’s dismay. He liked atypical things, things that were deemed diabolical of today’s standards. He would create fictional elements for the universe that he found himself often drifting into, one of pure madness of creatures and immortals and innovative weaponry. Needless to say, Maxis had an even worse tendency to inspect everything, had seized Edward’s notebook and sat the boy down, calling him out on his abnormal behaviour. Edward countered him with the argument of the man liking strictly gore, and at that, Maxis merely simpered and hand back the notebook.

Speaking of the devil, Edward stiffened hereupon reaching the entrance of the main room. Maxis, clad in his light blue button-up, smiled in salutation, wrinkles creasing everywhere around his blazing-cobalt eyes. He was seen to be prating with an outsider, who looks just as aberrant as Edward’s artistry;an unbound white blouse rugged into a crimson vest, paired with a wrap-around sangria tie. A spruce-coloured cloth dotted with canary circles was wrapped around the waist of their loose slate pants. His face, acclaimed the boy, was very prominent, looked nothing like the locals around Berlin, or even Munich. His skin is very tan, creased in the right places, and look to naturally have an empathetic look to it, as if he were consistently in distress. His gaunt, light brown eyes were hazed by the upturn of his curvaceous brows, and the most noteworthy, his extensive moustache, curved at the edges and stretching further than his cheekbones. The foreigner would nod, allowing Edward’s caretaker to drivel on without interrupting him, going as far as to smile anxiously, though fractious.

Maxis’ hand navigated their eyes, beyond the shadow of a doubt on the hideous portraits of widows that hung grisly on their dimly-decorated walls. Their shared gaze had sooner or later fell on the boy, who adhered his weight to his left side, grimacing callously. The German man’s face irradiated momentarily, arms outstretched in greeting. “How could I have forgotten? That is my son, Edward.” The foreigner shyly waved as the doctor continued on. “My daughter Samantha must be sleeping now, but this is Mr. Blackstone.”

“Uh, just call me Nero,” Nero, the unusually jittery man smiled, brows humbly curved. Another American?

“He lives just a mile off,” conveyed through German, and there the two began to babble.

The mansion over the valley? The one that looked to be of great abundance, the very stairs to riches? Moreover, this man did look to be affluent, seeing the golden sun encircling a burnished ruby, chained around his neck that shone like lanterns. That dwelling hadn’t been very far off the uncouth little fencing secluded by flowers he explored earlier, the one with the flaxen-haired American; was he connected in some way? Edward ruminated silently, dipping down his head to announce his leave before quickly making his tread to the kitchen. He’d brew together his count of energy with the coffee grinds, didn’t take more than two minutes to decant the liquid into his favourite flagon, and haul for the comforts that were his cherry-lumber desk and chair and window of the trees and flowers, back to the drawing board to work on the sketches of his universe.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow my Tumblr,  
> @Psithurismology and @zingtvoormij


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